Surplus ball powder
- Thread starter Hengehold
- Start date
Jeff Bartlett, Owensboro, KY. Check his website and I don't know it offhand but he may be a source.
Tom Alves
I bought a lot of powder, bullets and brass from Jeff over the years and had very favorable experience dealing with him.
Dusty Stevens
Shiner
+1. Nice guy
Hengehold
Silver $$ Contributor
Thanks. Wow, for that price I guess I will shoot the ,,Hogdon powders. I was expecting it to be on the cheaper range but apparently I was mistaken.
All the cheap surplus 5.56 powder evaporated with the recent component shortages. You can still get .50BMG and similar surplus for less, but the faster stuff is all gone.
Much of the powder is pull down powder. Larry
I am sure you are correct but it reminds me of folks that said the same thing fifty years ago when the $2 Hodgen surplus military powder ran out.
That was 4350 for $2.00 4831 was 75 cents a pound . Larry
Yes I did remember the 75 cents but thought folks would not believe that.
I still have 30 plus pounds of 4831 left shoots as good now as when I got it. Larry
jonbearman
I live in new york state,how unfortunate !
With the prices going up it is almost cheaper just buying from powder valley anymore. The days of 8 pound jugs for less than 100.00 is gone.
Considering the total cost of attending and shooting in HP match's reloading components are the things to cut costs on. Get with some of your shooting buddies and combine your orders to one big one, getting the powder & primers you want. If you do not have confidence in your loads, you might as well go fishing .
Years ago my buddies and I bought a bunch of surplus ball powder from Pat McDonald in Ohio for like $2-$5 a pound, depending on the lot's utility. (I think I've still got some of it around.) He's gone but the company is still there. I'm not sure how much useful surplus rifle powders survived the various Obama panics. You could always find really slow surplus stuff like 5010 (?) but for the equivalent of WC750 or IMR4895 you'd pay a premium. My question is; are you going to shoot so much .223 that the price of the powder matters that much? Buying the powder retail it would run, what, 7¢-10¢ per round? That's pretty much the cheapest part of the load any more.
Story: Buddies bought a barrel of 5010 for something like 50¢/lb. They told me that you could fill a .30-'06 case brim-full, cram a 200 gn bullet on top and produce about 2000 fps with shower of unburned powder all over the chronograph. They made out OK on the deal, after a while, when they found someone who had started reloading .50 BMG.
http://www.patsreloading.com
Story: Buddies bought a barrel of 5010 for something like 50¢/lb. They told me that you could fill a .30-'06 case brim-full, cram a 200 gn bullet on top and produce about 2000 fps with shower of unburned powder all over the chronograph. They made out OK on the deal, after a while, when they found someone who had started reloading .50 BMG.
http://www.patsreloading.com
sofarfrome
Silver $$ Contributor
I remember buying surplus H4895 (it may have been IMR). It was the best powder ever for 223/6BR/etc. I think I paid about $6/lb. and had 75 lbs. of it. I sold some and used the rest. Those days are long gone. In my early days of BR shooting I had a case designed on the 30 American and would stuff the case full of this powder with a 68gr BR bullet and it would shoot tiny little bugholes. With all due respect to pats reloading but H322 and similar powders can be purchased for $5 more per 8 lb jug than the surplus 844 and would choose that any day over the surplus ball powder. But that is just my opinion.
Hengehold
Silver $$ Contributor
Upgrades & Donations
This Forum's expenses are primarily paid by member contributions. You can upgrade your Forum membership in seconds. Gold and Silver members get unlimited FREE classifieds for one year. Gold members can upload custom avatars.
Click Upgrade Membership Button ABOVE to get Gold or Silver Status.
You can also donate any amount, large or small, with the button below. Include your Forum Name in the PayPal Notes field.
To DONATE by CHECK, or make a recurring donation, CLICK HERE to learn how.
Click Upgrade Membership Button ABOVE to get Gold or Silver Status.
You can also donate any amount, large or small, with the button below. Include your Forum Name in the PayPal Notes field.
To DONATE by CHECK, or make a recurring donation, CLICK HERE to learn how.